The Three Crows
by drunkdragon
Summary: A story of how Henry met Cordelia, and the three idiot birds that helped. Gotta watch out for that stupid Seagull though.


"Nice fighting out there, man!"

"Ha, it was a piece of cake!"

Risen were always easy prey. A spell blast there, maybe a fireball there, and bam! No more Risen. Then just rinse and repeat a couple times hundred times and the day was saved. It was always simple for Henry. He certainly envied those up in the front lines, though - they got to see the blood and limbs fly.

But now they were off the battlefield, and beginning to relax and unwind from the encounter. A few were wounded, but most had gotten off without a hitch. Unfortunately, though, his last Flux tome had disintegrated, and he was now rummaging through the storage tent to see if there was another spare he could use.

"You think you can teach me to do all that too?"

"Not sure!" the dark mage was jovial in his reply. "Do you think you could learn to read some of the spell's language?"

"Just try me!"

"Huh… well," he finally found what he was looking for, another Flux tome, and he opened to a page. "You might at least be able to learn this word!" Walking out of the tent, Henry crouched down low and gently laid the book against the ground. With a gentle trace, his finger hovered above a series of symbols. "Care to guess how to say that one?"

"Uh… walla walla bing bang?"

"Haha, no, it's 'Caw'!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, 'Caw'!"

"Caw!"

"Caw caw!"

"CaCaw!"

Henry had strange friends sometimes, but he could always take solace in that they were friends that wouldn't leave him. After a trio of crows found him singing in a forest one day, they had seemed to taken a strange liking to him, even willing to travel across the ocean on a giant boat and brave whizzing arrows and spells just to try and stay with him. But he figured it was natural - he had always been a fun guy for other birds to be with, so why wouldn't a few of them want to stay around for an extended stay?

They apparently had names, too. The biggest one was Joe, the youngest was Gary, and Curly was in the middle of sorts in terms of size. He wasn't sure how they got those names, but it certainly did help with differentiating the rest of them from their flock, if they ever flew around with them.

Plus they were a blast! They always seemed to appreciate his jokes, and when they laughed he just couldn't help but laugh as well.

"Henry."

"Oh dang it," Curly's feathers seemed to shrink and it hopped behind the dark mage. "Seagull, nine o'clock."

Seagull, however, was always a killjoy for the trio for some reason. Henry had a feeling that the white-haired woman just couldn't seem to appreciate the humor the birds enjoyed, but that was okay. She didn't have to like everything about him. She just had to like him enough to not stick a knife in his back.

Actually, that might not be so-

" _Henry._ "

"Yeah Robs?" the dark mage turned to look at the tactician, his usual smile decking his lips. Her long white locks were pulled around her head in a chain of braids, and she seemed to be ready to sleep. She lacked her usual attire and only seemed to have a nightgown beneath her purple coat.

She seemed to freeze up a little before shaking her head and sighing, wearily blinking. "Look, I don't mean to cut your fun short, but it's starting to get late. I'm not going to stop you if you want to stay up, but just try to keep it down, okay?"

"Hah, no problem! I'll do my best."

"Thank you, Henry. And take care of yourself, okay? I would like to make sure that we're all in good shape, and that includes you."

With a nod from the mage, the woman quickly and stiffly walked back to her tent.

Joe ruffled his feathers. "Man, that Seagull is always getting on our case."

"Hey now, I'm pretty sure I told you her name is Robin."

"Maybe, but she always shows up at the worst time and just kills everything," Curly looked him in the eye. "It's so annoying, like a seagull and how it's always yapping. Plus she kinda looks like one. Doesn't have that orange belly like robins do. So we started to call her Seagull."

Henry chuckled, "Well, that may be true, but-"

"Hey Boss…" Gary crept a little closer toward the entrance towards the storage tent, looking deeply into the semi-lit room. "That red chickadee is checking you out."

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

Henry quickly peered into the tent to see Cordelia taking stock of the vulneraries - he could recognize those little gold and yellow flasks anywhere. Usually he tossed them on the wayside, but recently he started to return them to the storage tent. It's not like he ever needed them anyway. Or wanted to use them, for the matter.

"Eh… she just seems to be focused on counting vulneraries. She always does that. Plus, she's not even looking at me! It's not like she has eyes on the back of her head, right?"

"No Boss, she keeps glancing at you! She keeps turning her head to the side and looking at you that way. She's into you, Boss! I swear!"

"You really think so?"

Curly hopped up and down a little, "Yeah, she's doing it like this!" Quickly turning to face away from him, the bird put on its most stoic pose. And then he turned his head to the left, angling his single eye up to Henry. Just as quickly as it turned, it snapped back, only to repeat the motion every few seconds.

"That's just like her!" Gary cried, flapping his wings a little. "How are you so good at that?"

Curly, however, stopped his impression and began to move towards the side of the entrance. "Oh crap, she's coming over! We gotta get out of the way!" The birds squawked, following Curly behind the canvas.

"We can't screw this up for you!"

"You can do it, Boss!"

Turning back towards the tent, he saw Cordelia making her way over to him. Her red gaze seemed transfixed on him, her sharp features unwavering.

"May I have a word, Henry?"

"Sure! What's up?"

"Well, I wasn't exactly sure when I was in the tent but... could you turn to your right for a moment?"

The request was simple enough. "Not a problem!"

As he turned and faced to the side, the pegasus knight took a hold of his left arm and moved behind him.

Gary fluffed in anticipation. "Oh man, she's putting the moves on you, Boss! Just play it cool!"

"Hm, it's as I thought." Cordelia gently let the arm back down. "You're bleeding at your side."

" _Really?_ "

"What?

"Boss is bleeding?"

"Where?"

The sudden cacophony and squabble caused her to jump, hesitantly stepping back as the birds began to hop and circle around him.

"Gods, where did these crows come from?"

Henry didn't hear her. He quickly dabbed his finger along his side and brought the red liquid to his face. "Oh man, this is great! I _am_ bleeding!"

"No, this is _not_ great," she huffed, eyeing the birds warily. "It could get infected or worse. Thankfully it doesn't look like it needs serious attention though. But how come you didn't treat it with a vulnerary? And what's with the birds?"

"Oh, they're just surprised you knew I was bleeding. Why, I didn't even realize it myself! Usually the enemies bleed onto me."

"But Henry, we fought Risen today," she carefully said. "They don't bleed."

The fluttering stopped. Curly and Gary looked at Cordelia, beaks and eyes wide open. Joe almost fell over in surprise. She nervously looked back, as if afraid that what she said would make them turn on her.

And just as quickly as the silence started, it was torn to shreds.

" _Risen don't bleed?_ "

"But then what's all that black stuff that they erupt into?"

"Who gives a hoot! We gotta take better care of Boss!"

"Haha, it's okay, guys, really!" Henry chuckled, looking at his wound, "It doesn't seem serious." He looked back at Cordelia. "And vulneraries? I don't use them. It gives me more space to carry weapons or hands or bones or-"

"Sorry, I..." Cordelia paused uncomfortably, unsure of how to deal with his comment, "don't mean to cut you off from your um... excitement. But Henry, could you show me what you bring into combat with you?"

"Oh, sure!" Taking off his coat, he emptied the pockets and showed her everything he had. Charms, tomes, ingredients, everything.

"Tomes, tomes… I knew it," she frowned, glancing back at him. "You're not taking your vulnerary with you."

"Yeah, I never take those with me," Henry exclaimed, putting his things away. "Usually I just throw them away, but then I just started to put them back, in case someone actually _wants_ to use it, whoever those guys are. How did you know?"

"Well," she started, "I've been keeping count of our vulneraries, and it seemed like we had a surplus. At first I was wondering if it was because we had less injuries recently, but we seem to be at the average in regards to that. So I began to suspect that someone wasn't using them."

She shot him a concerned look. "Is there a reason why you're not taking them with you?"

"Well, if I used them on the smallest of scratches, then there would be none of my blood, and I wouldn't be having this great time!" He lifted the side of his coat, trying to get to his flesh. "Dang. I'd have to take off my top to get a closer look."

She sighed before shaking her head a little. "Well, regardless, just take care of yourself, like Robin said. We need to be in the best of shape when the time comes." Walking into the tent, she pulled out a vulnerary and put it in his hands, curling his fingers around it. "Please use this tonight. No matter how fun it might be, keep in mind that your livelihood affects that of others. We'd be hard pressed if we lost you somehow."

"Got it, Cordelia, got it."

With that, the pegasus knight bid him goodnight and walked away, perhaps heading to her own tent to rest.

"Man, that red chickadee is smart! How is she keeping track of all that without twigs and leaves?"

With Cordelia gone, the three crows hopped in front of Henry, barely able to contain their excitement. They stretched their wings and squawked loudly into the night.

"Yeah, I can only count to seven!"

"You can count, Curly?"

"Yeah! One," He raised one wing, and then the other, "Seven!"

Gary shot him an eager look, "She's into you, Boss! You should mate with her. Imagine how amazing your baby chicks would be!"

"And she's pretty too! Your chicks would have the smoothest of feathers!"

Joe brought his wing across the back of Curly's head, "Humans don't have feathers, Curly!"

"Eh, I dunno," Henry said, scratching his chin. "I mean, the last time I tried to do the whole mating thing, it got kinda weird."

"That's because you were doing the call wrong!" the big one reared back, spreading his wings. "You gotta go like 'cacacaCaw' with your wings all the way to the side. Chicks dig strong wings."

"Careful Joe! You might just cast that spell! We don't wanna hurt Boss!"

"Oh, shoot, you're right!"

"But I don't have wings like you guys." Henry's brow furrowed a little before he waved the idea away. "Eh, whatever. I guess I'll sleep on it or something."

And with that, Henry began to walk back to his tent, the three crows hopping and fluttering after him. Mating wasn't that important anyway, though he wondered what it would be like to have a human friend, one that didn't just walk away when the day was over.

* * *

A/N: So I know I said that I was going to get the next chapter of _In Security_ out, but I was taking a shower last night and trying to figure out the logistics of how Henry and Cordelia would get together in _Three is Company_ (not really a spoiler because I mention Severa's silver hair in chapter one). And then I recalled that when I first went through the game, I paired the two together. While their support didn't seem super special in hindsight, it holds a bit of a special place in my heart. Not to mention that I am a pretty big Cordy fan, so I guess this was a natural next step for me.

And though there are a good share of romance stories featuring Henry, according to the search engine there are only two stories featuring these two in the spotlight. I was a little saddened at that, but then this incredible idea reared its head in my mind and I just had to write it out. It... It just... appeared and demanded my attention. I mean, I have google docs on my phone and all, but this idea was the only one to actually make me want to write on my phone as opposed to writing on my computer (screw my mini keyboard thingus). Maybe because this story is going to be more heavily focused on humor compared to most of my other stories, probably with a good balance of slapstick humor going about.

Plus, the concept of three birds assisting Henry in their own way is a unique approach to telling a love story compared to what I've done before. It just seems to breathe a bout of fresh air into how I've approached this genre, and I look forward to seeing where I can go. I don't expect this to be too long, maybe five or six chapters, but I always seem to undershoot how long it will really take. It does help that I have a good series of ideas for the following chapters, though, so maybe it really will just be that long. It's not a whole journey, but really just how they get to saying yes to each other, I suppose, and that makes it easier to manage. They also won't be as long, since it's a bit more episodic, so that will help it as well.

Now I will also say that I've maybe only seen one or two things featuring The Three Stooges in the media, but the name is quite famous. Obviously, the birds' names are references to them, Joe being Moe and Gary being Larry. I look forward to seeing if I can do the idea justice.

Anyway, I hope you look forward to reading this as much as I look forward to writing it.

I do not own Fire Emblem, and I appreciate all comments and criticism.

...

Stupid Seagull.

PS: Chickadees are cute. Bestest little birds ever.


End file.
